The last remaining Atlanta area location of Boneheads has closed. Located in a 2,800 square foot endcap space in Dunwoody's Perimeter Place shopping center, the Boneheads restaurant closed permanently as of December 29, 2018 according to signage on its front door. The restaurant opened with the center itself in 2007. (The Boneheads closure, while seemingly quiet, actually occurred before the recent closure of The Cowfish at neighboring Perimeter Mall that ToNeTo Atlanta was first to report on January 10.)
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| A sign notifying guests the restaurant is "permantly" closed |
Boneheads, which offered "fresh" seafood in a quick-serve setting, was originally launched in 2006 by Moe's Southwest Grill creator Raving Brands. Unlike Moe's, however, Boneheads was not an assembly line ordering process, but was instead more like Zoes Kitchen where food is ordered at a counter and then prepared in the back and then brought to your table.
The company attempted to replicate the success it had with Moe's to other cuisines, seafood and Asian (Mama Fu's Asian House) among them. These attempts, and others like them, proved unsuccessful. Raving Brands, now known as Big Game Brands, sold Boneheads to Ron Barber, then a franchisee of the brand, and his BH Acquisition, LLC, in late 2009. Barber subsequently relocated the company's headquarters first to Chastain Park, and later to what appears to be their current home, on Jonquil Drive in Smyrna.
Information under the "Become a Franchise Owner" [BE A BONEHEAD] tab on the Boneheads website is filled with exciting verbiage like "#1 Fast Casual Seafood Brand with No National Competitors" and wins like "Voted One of the Top 100 Movers and Shakers" in 2014 and "One of the Top 50 Brands of the year in 2014," but the "growing brand" is now down to just a single location.
The last remaining Boneheads known to still be in operation opened just over three years ago in Pensacola, Florida near the University of West Florida.
In 2018, Atlanta area Boneheads closed at Atlantic Station in Atlanta, along Powers Ferry Road near SunTrust Park and at Camp Creek Marketplace in East Point.
The former Atlantic Station location is expected to reopen soon as Pho 24, the former Powers Ferry location reopened last year as Mambo Italiano, and the Camp Creek Marketplace space was back-filled by Old Lady Gang, a restaurant run by Kandi Burruss-Tucker and her husband Todd Tucker.
Other former Boneheads locations in metro Atlanta include those on Windward Parkway in Alpharetta, Pharr Road in Buckhead, Chastain Square in Buckhead, Peachtree Battle in Buckhead, TOWN Brookhaven in Brookhaven, and West Crossville Road in Roswell, among others.
At Perimeter Place, the now former Boneheads joins a growing list of available restaurant spaces. The 7,022 square foot former Cheeseburger in Paradise remains available following their late 2012 closure. In 2013, Mad Bull's Tavern was to open in the space, but never did, followed by World of Beer in 2015, which also failed to come to fruition.
Applebee's went dark in their freestanding 5,322 square foot restaurant in early 2017 and its building remains vacant today.
Perimeter Place has also added a couple of new restaurants, with Hobnob opening last month in place of Mimi's Cafe while Sweet Tuna opened in late 2017 in a space once occupied by former Raving Brands sibling concept Doc Green's.
The manageable, 2,800 square foot Boneheads space should be attractive to quick-serve restaurants looking to enter the market given both its size, endcap location and the fact that it could be an economical option given its existing restaurant infrastructure.
Are you surprised that Boneheads closed? What would you like to see open in place of Boneheads at Perimeter Place? What is your favorite restaurant in the Dunwoody area?
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